Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
This Month Is for You: Observing Rosh Hodesh as a Woman’s Holiday
Rosh Hodesh is celebrated only eleven times a year. Tishre, the month Rosh Hodesh coincides with Rosh Hashanah, is omitted. If Rosh Hodesh falls on two days, the ceremony may…
Kreuzer Sonata Advertisement
A Portuguese-language advertisement for February 5–6, 1915, performances in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, of the Grande Companhia Israelita’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s novella The Kreuzer Sonata.
Sketches from Krochmalna Street: “The Charity Lady”
Along Krochmalna Street, placing her feet shod in elegant, light-colored boots carefully amid the muddy puddles, stepping aside at every moment so as not to stain her clothing against the greasy…
Cover for Peretz Markish’s Book of Poetry, Far folk un heymland (For People and Homeland)
The cover of Far folk un heymland features a red flag and Yiddish writing in which the letter qof has been stylized to resemble a hammer and sickle. The book was published when World War II was still…
Home! Home?
After surviving the war, Miklós Adler returned to his hometown of Debrecen and created sixteen woodcuts, signing them Ben Binyamin (“son of Benjamin”) in honor of his father. In this woodcut…
East End, London
In 1950, when this photograph was taken, much of London’s East End was in ruins, the result of heavy bombing during World War II. Its glory days as a vibrant Jewish immigrant community were over, and…
The Present Crisis of American Jewry
America has, in less than one generation, become the second largest center of the Jewish Diaspora, and bids fair to become the first, instead of the second, within another generation. No other country…
Hand-Washing Basin
Before the priestly blessing is recited in the synagogue, those making the blessing ritually wash their hands. It is also customary for Jews to wash their hands before entering a synagogue for worship…
Postage Stamp
When the company owned by Jacob Abraham Jesurun (1806–1875) obtained a contract for mail delivery within the Caribbean in 1867, it had its own stamps printed featuring the firm’s initials, J. A. J. &…
The Book of Leviticus, Translated and Explained
The present commentary on Leviticus is based on my lectures on Leviticus given at the Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin in 1873/4 and 1876/7. This fact explains the approach and the economy of my…
On the Question of All Questions Concerning the Settling of the Land
The Arab Question—with which the youngsters born in this Land have been familiar for many years, and because of which they were subject to disgrace and ridicule by the prominent men within the Yishuv…
When You Suffer, They Shall Find You
The time (in which we live) is truly “a time to work for the Almighty,” and great is the responsibility now falling upon every Jew with the ability to do so. [ . . . ] All the lands of the diaspora…